She certainly should have been there, since sh was one of our more active battleships. I don't know where she was..I bet you do.

One thing for sure--if I were arranging the ceremony, I would make sure that substantial fleet elements weren't in the harbor, including some first line
battleships, were NOT in the harbor. Command detonated mines, or hidden torpedo tubes, combined with a mass Kamikaze strike could not be ruled out. As for
which ships would be there and not there, I don't know how that was decided.

well i did post our orders of 9/2/45 to procede to bremerton for a yard period delayed fron 8/2/45 becuz of assignments to bombard the jap homeland but on
9/2/45 orders did come to u s with a escort to form a tf with Capt REDMAN as sopa with a stop to yusuka to pick up a detachment of 70 % marines and 30% blue
jackets of massachusetts ships company that was put ashore to help with ploice action and we had stops at guam and pearl to recieve passengers for state side
duty { Magic Carpet mean any thing} while enroute Capt REDMAN did cease all gun watches as hosilites were done also he ordered at nite to run with running
lites alummination what a thrill that was I'll try to post it again but y it was deleted after 2 days I know not why maybe a yank thing I wrote and asked y
but got no reply

Nuff Said
BOBC

...For those that fought for it,Freedom has a taste and meaning,The protected will never know!

emc wrote:
As to why Missouri and not Massachusetts? Random acts of history?

Just random acts of politics. HST was a proud Missourian and his daughter christened BB63. I'll bet there was little discussion in the Navy
Dept about which ship would represent the USA for the surrender.

You'll often read Missouri was chosen because she was the last battleship to commission (true; Wisconsin commissioned 16 April 44,
Missouri was 11 June), therefore Missouri was in the best material condition. As I recall she was also still flying Halsey's flag as
Flagship of the Third Fleet at the time.

The fact she was also named for the home state of the then-current US President I'm sure had NOTHING to do with it...

Bob,

Consider it a measure of Mamie's value. With the war over there should have been no hurry to get her an overhaul, right? But on 1 September 1945 she was
ordered to Puget Sound for just that reason.

As boblaurabyu points out, a number of ships were held away in case the Japanese changed their minds. After seeing the civilians on Okinawa and Saipan refuse
to surrender, let alone the way the Japanese army and navy personnel did not throughout the war, I'm sure there was plenty of suspicion as to whether the
Japanese might acutally go through with it.

Wisconsin and Indiana were among the battleships kept away, finally docking in Japan on 5 September.

You can see the list of ships present for the Japanese surrender here:

You'll often read Missouri was chosen because she was the last battleship to commission (true; Wisconsin commissioned 16 April 44,
Missouri was 11 June), therefore Missouri was in the best material condition. As I recall she was also still flying Halsey's flag as
Flagship of the Third Fleet at the time.

The fact she was also named for the home state of the then-current US President I'm sure had NOTHING to do with it...

binder001 wrote:
Just random acts of politics. HST was a proud Missourian and his daughter christened BB63. I'll bet there was little discussion in the Navy Dept about
which ship would represent the USA for the surrender.

binder001, I think we were typing at the same time. Our posts are 10 minutes apart, but I was called away from the keyboard for a short while in the middle of
posting...

emc wrote:
HST? Duh; excuse me while I give myself a dope slap

emc,

I don't think my sarcasm font was working for

The fact she was also named for the home state of the then-current US President I'm sure had NOTHING to do with it...

Maybe I should change it to

<sarcasm>The fact she was also named for the home state of the then-current US President I'm sure had NOTHING to do with it...</sarcasm>

Shockingly, my sarcasm detector may have been malfunctioning. Of course politics had absolutely nothing to do with Missouri's presence. That HST was
President and from a state with the same name as the battleship is, of course, pure coincidence as absolutely no one in the executive, civil, or uniformed
services would ever even dream of trying to suck up to the President, even if HST would never, ever dream of a ship sponsored by his daughter getting any kind
of special treatment.

I imagine the months just after the war ended must have been interesting. "Yay! The war is over, now what do we do with all these ships while getting the
sailors home ASAP?" I've heard anecdotes from veterans of ships pulling into a base or shipyard, shutting down, buttoning up and the crew just leaving
her there with a few base MPs to guard the pier. Not sure how true that was but it doesn't sound too far off for small units at least?

From what I've read, there were a lot of dissatisfied staff and sailors of the choice of the Missouri for the surrender site. "Pure
Politics" and "A Johnny Come Lately" was their description of the decision.
The West Virginia would have been most of their choices with her Pearl Harbor experiences, but the North Carolina, Washington, South Dakota,
Indiana, Massachusetts or Alabama deserved consideration as they 'toed the line' in 1942-1943 when the the WW2 victory was still in
doubt.

I'm not going to argue with your choices (although I do think there are obvious reasons to add Massachusetts); I'm not even going to say
that politics didn't play a role in Missouri's choice. I'd just like to observe that Harry Truman wasn't the only politician in Washington,
and sucking up to the boss is a very old tactic.

I would've picked the USS Pennsylvania since she was the sister ship to the Arizona. I know she was getting patched up from the torp she took which nearly
sank her, but maybe she would've been in shape just to accept the surrender. If not her, then maybe the Nevada, raised from the ashes and sent the Germans
and Japs to hell! Just my two cents. Does anybody have a list on were all of our BB's were during the time of surrender?

"Freedom has never been free, there will ALWAYS be a price for Liberty!"